Susan's Story
by me in the present tense
Summary: My explanation of what happens to poor, confused Susan. Admit it, you want her to get to Narnia too!


Susan's Story

So the title may be unnecessary and useless. It just _feels_ better with the title there.

I've branched out! There's a second story for those "devoted fans". Yeah right. Like I ever had devoted fans. This is slightly less crappy than my Inheritance/Twilight crossover. Well, at least I think so. I like it and so did my Creative Writing teacher. She gave me a hundred on it!

**Disclaimer: I'm not even British. I seriously don't own the rights to anyone in this story except Emily and John and they're not that original. Doesn't every story have one of them?**

**So what I'm saying is, I don't own any of the good characters and I definitely don't own Jack. No one but Jack ever owned Jack. Don't sue me. Ever! I won't be able to afford it!**

Susan Pevensie tapped her foot on the floor impatiently. Mother and Father had _sworn_ to call the identical moment they arrived in London and _she_'d sworn not to leave the house until they did. After the call, she could finally go out with John, her best friend's Emily's older brother. He was definitely the handsomest boy she knew and he was happy to go with a pretty girl like her. So what if he hadn't gone to school and her parents thought he was stupid? _She_ liked him. Or at least what he said to her.

She sighed to herself. Mum and Dad had called at the last stop where the train had been, of course, late. Mother hadn't known how long it would take the British Railways to get a train for them. Little doubt it hadn't come and they were still in the station waiting. Why couldn't they just call? It was a quarter past seven and the film John wanted to see with her was at seven-thirty. Susan angrily stormed back to her room to get ready. With the hurried accuracy learned from years of dates, she put on her makeup and touched up her hair. In the glass she could see herself and her neatened hair, streaming long and dark down her back. She was terribly vain of her hair, but would never admit it. Truth be told, she was terribly vain of all her beauty. She liked being able to turn heads at the grocer's or while riding the tube.

The minutes ticked by. The phone refused to ring. At twenty-five after she impatiently dashed out the door on the familiar route to Emily's.

* * *

John held her hand throughout the movie. She was distracted, not even paying attention to the funny shorts or the newsreels. Suddenly a lion's great roar erupted in the quiet theatre. Susan covered her ears with her hands. Her head hurt like the growl had blown up like a bomb in her head. She held her head in her hands, only dimly aware of John bent over her asking what was wrong. It was so dreadfully cold, and the sun went out, and a lamppost—a lamppost surrounded by trees—went out like two enormous fingers had snuffed it like a candle. She felt like her head was exploding and then crumpling in upon itself.

And then...nothing.

Curiously, she lifted her head. It was over. Whatever it was over forever.

* * *

The house was dark and lonely when John left her at the door after the movie. Susan was used to it. Date after date while her parents were out she'd returned to an empty house.

Today, it seemed unbearable. It was so oppressive and depressing. Her hand went to the switch on the lamp, but instead she went for a Lucifer to light a candle with. The homey glow reminded her of Nar—of that game she used to play when she was twelve and still a baby. Funny, she hadn't thought of it in the longest time, save when Peter, Edmund, or Lucy brought it up. _They_ kept saying that Narn—that game was real and she could still be a queen. At least she'd grown up. She wasn't surprised at Ed or Lu; they were still kids. But Peter! He should've realized by now how silly all three of them were being and started acting like an adult, which he certainly was.

The phone rang. Susan dashed to it guiltily and picked it up slightly out of breath. 'Hello?' a voice questioned. 'May I speak to Susan Pevensie?'

'This is she,' she answered, remembering the years spent grinding away at grammar with this boy or another.

'I am calling on behalf of the British Railways. We have had a train accident between trains 712 Bristol and 978 London. They collided at 7:45 today, killing Mr. and Mrs. Paul Pevensie and Peter, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie. We also have an account that you are related to a certain Eustace Clarence Scrubb?'

Susan sat down. 'No.'

'No, he's of no relation to you?'

'No! You're wrong! You have to be! They can't be dead. Mum and Dad, Peter, Ed, Lu. They can't be! They can't be!' Susan waited for tears to pour down her face but they didn't come. 'They can't be,' she whispered again.

'I'm so sorry. So very sorry, ma'am,' he said, compassion leaking into his business voice.

'Little Eustace...he wasn't even seventeen yet,' Susan choked out past the lump in her throat.

'Miss Pevensie, I...I'm sorry. I know how hard it hits. Stay safe Miss Pevensie.' An impersonal click said he'd hung up, no doubt to call the other victims' families.

Susan fell to the floor. The linoleum was cold against her legs. A tear squeezed out of her eye and ran down her cheek. She sobbed into her hands and tried to wipe at her eyes with her sleeve. She had a handkerchief somewhere, but she didn't care.

'Why?' she whispered. 'Why them? Why did _they_ have to die? Why?' Her tears fell in innumerable amounts, tinged pink from her rouge. On the cold tile she cried until her tears ran out and were replaced by the fitful nothingness of her dreams.

* * *

Susan woke up, sore from sleeping on the tile, broken from heart-breaking loneliness. She slowly stretched her muscles. She'd been sad last night; something was wrong. Her heart gave an enormous thump as she remembered that she was the only Pevensie left on God's green earth. Alone.

She sat there on the floor. Susan felt more alone than anything and the tiny apartment where she lived with everyone seemed like Dr. Kirke's house. It had been more like a museum-mansion than a house, really. It was where little Lucy had discovered the wardrobe and Narn—that, that game they used to play started then. 'It was a game,' she said aloud. It felt like someone had been listening to her very thoughts. 'It was! It was!' she whisper-yelled.

Her stomach grumbled. She mechanically walked into the kitchen and made herself toast. No butter, no jam, just two swipes of margarine. One cup of tea with half a teaspoon of sugar. No cream, never any more sugar. Ever since she'd started watching her already-trim waistline that had been her breakfast. Not that she really cared what it was right now.

The tea tasted disgusting. She poured half of it down the drain in the sink and diluted the rest until it was flavorless. Susan left the cup on the counter. She ate three bites of toast and left the rest. She'd been starving, but now her hunger was tame as a kitten. More than anything she wanted to do nothing. Not even think. Especially not think. Thinking led to remembering and remembering was too painful.

The phone rang. She took one shoe off and threw it at the phone. It kept ringing. She walked towards it. More bad news, her mind irrationally told her. Telephones can't bring good news. She told herself she was being ridiculous and picked up the receiver. Her hand trembled. 'Hello?' she whispered into the phone.

'Oh Susan dear, this is Alberta. How are you over there?'

It was aunt Alberta who bitterly refused the title 'aunt'. Susan involuntarily cringed. Edmund used to make such lovely jokes about her...a tear slid down her nose and was joined by another. Alberta took the sudden silence as a hint she was doing poorly. 'Oh, Susan dear it must hurt dreadfully. But you know dear, science has proven that the less we dwell on sadness, the sooner we get over it. We all need to move on.' There was a slight pause. 'You know, dear, maybe you should come over here and stay with me and Harold. We know exactly how to deal with grief. We'll all get through—'

'No!' Susan half-yelled into the phone. 'I'll stay here, Alberta. I'll be fine.'

'I'm sure you will, but I just want to help.'

'Goodbye, Alberta.'

'Goodbye, Susan.' The soft click made her feel safe again.

'I'll be fine,' she whispered. 'I'll be fine.'

* * *

Susan was _not_ fine. At the end of the day, the manager of the office where she worked as a secretary called to ask why she hadn't been in. She hung up on him. Distant and close relatives from all over called to give their condolences. She hung up on most of them. She forgot about lunch and had her finally remembered dinner of bread and milk at eleven o' clock at night.

The next morning she got up at three (after going to bed at midnight) and disconnected the phone. She cried the day away, only stopping to tell herself she really should change from the tear-and-makeup-stained blouse and find her other shoe. She never got dressed or found her other shoe.

Alberta planned a group funeral for all of them. Subconsciously Susan was relieved that she hadn't a funeral to plan, let alone for five people. On the surface, Susan was absent. She reconnected the phone just in time to receive Alberta's call about a funeral on Saturday. It would be in Finchley (by autocar; not even busied Alberta wanted to take the British Railways). It was to make it easier for Susan. It _was_ easier.

Susan phoned Emily and asked her to call on Saturday. 'Please,' she begged. She swallowed back a flood of tears that threatened her composure. 'Please. I don't even know what day _today_ is. I wouldn't know Saturday from Eve.'

She got the black dress out from Uncle Lewis's funeral a few years back. All she could remember was flirting with her uncle's godson, Thomas. She sighed. So many of her memories were about flirting and young men recently. But delving any deeper caused so much pain.

For safekeeping she laid the dress on her bed. She hadn't slept in it since her first night on the tile. Life was a crazy blur of madness. She didn't sleep much anyway. Sleep brought dreams of her family back when she was small. Sometimes she was in that wonderful place from when she was at Professor Kirke's house. Funny, she remembered snowy forests and a bright lamppost and Professor Kirke had lived in the middle of nowhere and it had been the middle of summer. But still she _knew_ in her heart of hearts that it was from that summer, the summer after she'd turned twelve.

* * *

The phone rang. Susan had long since decided it buzzed like a gnat more than it rang. Her hand hovered above the receiver before she picked it up. It was Emily, informing her that it was Saturday, time for the funeral she didn't want to go to but wanted to be at so much.

She refused Emily's kind offer to pick her up, instead electing to take the tube. She wouldn't find people she knew there.

Back in her room she pulled on the black dress and found her black pumps. Not her saddle shoes; she still hadn't found the one she'd thrown at the telephone. Her dress zipped up far too easily. She'd lost weight; she knew that. Missed meals and lost sleep had taken their toll.

Slowly, methodically, she walked into the bathroom. Her face was pale and she looked awful. There were still faint traces of the makeup from her date with John. Instead of reaching for the hair crimper and her tube of red lipstick, she rummaged around for a pair of black sunglasses. She remembered searching all afternoon for just the right pair with Lucy. She had _desperately_ wanted to look like Greta Garbo to impress Timothy at the mailroom and had found the most glamorous pair she could. They'd fallen out of favour since then, but now she was grateful for the black lenses that hid her red eyes and disguised her face.

Her hands remembered to grab her bag and her hankie. At the station she had carefully count out the change twice before she got the desired amount. It was too loud and boisterous. She felt so small, like she was taking the train to the boarding school again. They'd all gotten to go to Narni—no. No, she supposed they'd merely told stories about the land of make-believe there. She could almost feel the pinches that had pulled—that they had given each other to explain how they'd get there.

The boisterous underground helped ease the pain. She concentrated on the buzz of people and listening for the right station.

The person next to her chattered and chattered. Susan paid little attention to her until a bit about a funeral pricked her ears up. 'Hmm? About the funeral, ma'am?'

'Aw, missie, I knew the mother, I did. Went to school with 'er. The kids were good. Very imaginative. Almost every time I went over there they was chattin' on about their Narner place.'

'Narnia?' Susan whispered.

'Yea', something like that, missie. The eldest gel, she's still alive. She used to talk a piece about Narner too. Only she don't anymore. Guess she's all grown up, eh? Too old to talk about Narner.' The woman sighed. 'She's a pretty gel, but she's lonely, I 'spect. She's always been too surrounded with 'erself to see a lot o' things.'

Normally this would've taken a rise out of Susan, but it didn't. Something in her voice made sense.

Throughout the entire service Susan tuned the preacher's voice out. She hadn't believed in God for years. Nobody had actually outright said, 'Oh you believe in God? What a baby!' but there had been superior glances aplenty when she folded her hands to pray. Gradually she didn't see God as that important when the minor deities _men_ were around and her parents had loosened up about makeup and dating. As long as she could stay out for as long as she liked (practically) and wear as much makeup as she chose to (within reason), God wasn't necessary. He wasn't letting her stay out dancing until three in the morning.

And right now He'd taken her family from her. She didn't want to believe right now. Well, she thought she didn't.

She cried into her hankie intermittently for almost the entire service. Tears hurt. Each one bore a memory of her family: starting school and missing Mum, or running Mrs. Macready at Professor Kirke's house or pretending to be Narnians. She had been Queen Susan the...the...She couldn't remember what they'd called her in Narnia. Or what they'd _pretended_ to call her. Had it been a game at all? She wasn't sure anymore. Maybe it _had_ been real and she'd been lying to herself all those years.

And suddenly she really knew they were all in Narnia. And if she'd only believed she'd be there with them. Tears ran down her cheeks, washing the last of the makeup away. Susan wiped away the tears with her handkerchief, now dyed black and brown and pink from her makeup. The mixture was ugly, false. Just like she had been a few days (or was it weeks?) ago.

She'd lost so much. Did she have anything left to lose?

* * *

At the end of the service, Emily started to make her way towards her with John. Susan remembered her conversations with John, all about his scores in football and rugby. She thought herself silly to have put up with the shallow tomfoolery all for his handsomeness. Quickly she pushed her way through the crowd to find Alberta and told her she, Susan, intended to leave immediately. For the first time in her life, Alberta was flustered, partially with her deeply hidden grief and partially due to the sheer number of family members and friends and friends-of-the-family to deal with. She nodded vaguely, though to her credit she always said she thought Susan meant she wanted to leave with her and Harold.

Susan got home packed a small satchel with some clothes and left Finchley for London. She never returned.

_Two years later..._

Jack smiled as he helped Susan into her coat. 'Thanks again, Su. This is all so lovely. You know I wish I could go too.'

'So do I, Jack,' she answered as she pushed her sunglasses up her nose. That sad smile crept back onto her face. 'I know they're there and I miss them so much.'

'I'm sure it'll get better, Su. I told you going back to church would help.'

'It was the best advice I've ever taken.'

He changed the subject to help her. 'I think we'll be able to get the next one out soon.'

'Wonderful! Make sure to get me a copy, Jack. You know I love to read them!' A genuine smile of joy lit up her face like a new-lit candle.

He smiled as he stood in the door of The Kilns. 'Of course Su. And everything will be as you told me, only a little finer around the edges.'

'Jack I've read every draft and you know I love it. I've got to go. See you on Sunday, Jack!' she yelled as she headed for her automobile.

Since 1949, her life had been far from home back in London. She'd moved to Oxford and studied with what little money she'd saved. Somewhere along the lines she met Jack, though she couldn't tell where. She'd started telling him the entire story in a topsy-turvy way, with every bit of Narnia and Aslan in it. There'd been something in his eyes. He asked her to visit his house in the country so he could hear it all. She had. He'd written down what she said and just last year the first story of Narnia was published. She'd told him everything: stories about Prince Caspian and what Professor Kirke had seen with Miss Plummer and stories she'd heard Ed and Lu whisper about with Eustace.

Jack wrote them all down and 'polished them up like the diamonds hidden in the rough that they were,' according to him. He made books out of them, beautiful fairy tale like stories that had enchanted her even more when he told them.

Su adjusted her hands on the wheel. She never saw the car zooming in on the right.

* * *

A man with a gentle face greeted her in the midst of darkness. 'Little one, are you all right?' he asked, as if he already knew she was fine but also knew it would reassure her.

'I don't know, sir.' She looked at her hands and twisted them together awkwardly. 'Am—am I dead?' she whispered.

He smiled at her question and her down-turned head. 'Death is merely a passage to My country, little one.'

Susan looked up. Next to her was the lion that had always been at her heels since she was twelve. Without a thought she threw her arms around his neck. 'Aslan!' she yelled into his mane.

'Susan, you have been lonely, haven't you?'

'I—you and Him—I—yes, Aslan,' she whispered.

'You are right. He is me as I am Him.'

Susan nodded. She burst into the happiest tears of her life. She brushed them away.

'You have suffered much because of your disbelief and distrust.'

'Aslan you left me,' she accused through her joyful tears.

'I never left you. You left me.'

She cried into his mane for a long time, hoping he would take her to Narnia but knowing he might leave her out.

Aslan nodded his great head. A door of light broke open.

'You had only to ask, Susan.'

Susan stepped through the door into Narnia again.


End file.
